Home Storage Through the Seasons

If you have to turn sideways to skinny down the hallways in your home, it may be time to seek out new and more efficient storage solutions. With the change in seasons comes extra decor, clothing and holiday lights that only add to the confusion. Homeowners with plenty of extra storage space eagerly anticipate bringing the baubles down from the attic or in from the shed. But those who live in limited space have a tendency to drag their feet. If your seasonal decor takes up needed space in your home year round, try some out-of-the-box storage options to help you undeck those halls.

Rent a P.O.D

Portable On Demand storage units have popped up all over the place since their inception in 1998. These mobile storage units come in sizes as large as 8 feet wide by 16 feet long. They’re delivered right to your door where you fill them with all the extra stuff you don’t really use but can’t bear to part with. Keep them on your property or fill them and have them hauled away to a local storage facility for a fee. Rent one and use it as out-of-season storage, filling it full of turtlenecks, comforters and winter boots in summer and changing them out for bathing suits and beer coolers in the fall.

Rent a Self-Storage Unit

Almost every town has a local entrepreneur who rents out storage units to folks like you who have more valuable belongings than they currently have room for. Available in a variety of sizes to store everything from roller shades and area rugs, to cars and motorcycles, a self-storage unit provides a secure, climate-controlled facility to store your belongings away from home. Perfect for delicate collectibles such as snow globes and Christmas candles, a climate-controlled storage unit protects your belongings from extremes of temperature that can melt, freeze or otherwise damage them. In addition, renting a unit from a reputable storage facility guarantees your wool sweaters and seasonal tablecloths will be safe from damaging pests like moths and mice. Typically, an assigned code gives you 24/7 access to your unit as long as your account is in good standing — making that late-night run to recover boxes of forgotten ornaments a perfectly feasible option.

Perform a Digital Conversion

If mountains of old Christmas and anniversary cards, vacation photos, grade-school artwork and certificates of achievement make your guest room unusable, consider converting it all to digital format. By scanning and saving it all to disk or memory card, you’ll have high-quality images of this sentimental paperwork that takes up too much space. You can then send the hard copies to climate-controlled storage to get them out from underfoot. As an added perk, converting all those heavy, bulky photo albums to digital online albums makes them that much easier to share with friends and family.

Fill Up a Few Space Bags

Space Bags, Ziploc’s solution to soft storage, can reduce the size of the items you store by a whopping 50 percent or more. Use cube bags to store quilts, blankets, out-of-season throw pillows, fall table runners and flannel sheet sets. Use the medium and large-size bags for fall and winter clothing — sweats, coats, snow pants, sweaters and jeans.